ALBANY COUNTY — The death of a COVID-19 patient on Sunday night has brought the county’s toll to 23. He was a man in his seventies who, like almost all of the others who have died of the disease in Albany County, had underlying health issues.

A new testing site for diagnosing COVID-19 will open on Wednesday, joining a drive-through site run by the state at the University at Albany’s uptown campus, and four walk-to sites in high-risk city neighborhoods run through a partnership the county formed with the Whitney M. Young Jr. Health Center.

The new site, a drive-through, will run seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Rite-Aid at 1863 Central Ave. in Colonie. The county joined in a partnership with the United States Department of Health and Rite Aid pharmacies to set up the site.

As with the other sites, an appointment is required; people, who don’t have to be Colonie residents, may register online at www.RiteAid.com. The nationwide chain currently has testing sites in California, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as at two other sites in New York.

“We’d love to test everyone but we can’t,” said Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy at Monday’s press briefing, noting that there aren’t enough testing kits. “We have to take care of the people with the signs and symptoms,” he said.

The symptoms of coronavirus disease 2019 include fever, cough, and shortness of breath.

“There’ll be no costs to individuals … if you meet the CDC guidelines,” said McCoy, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “If you don’t have insurance, we’re going to pay for it.”

Rite-Aid pharmacists will conduct the tests, handing people who drive through a swab they will use for a nasal test; results will be reported through email or by phone. The site is expected to perform about 200 tests per day.

McCoy thanked Colonie’s supervisor, Paula Mahan, and county legislators for pushing for a testing site in Colonie.

On April 17, county Legislator Jennifer Whalen had sent a letter to McCoy, referencing the new walk-in sites, with three in Albany and one in Watervliet: “I understand that having testing sites available to those who rely on public transportation is important, but I fail to see how multiple sites in the same section of the county is necessary while none have been set up in other municipalities,” she wrote. “The Town of Colonie has a population of over 80,000 residents with over 17% being senior citizens. Colonie is also home to a significant number of essential businesses with large stores remaining open and staffed.”

At Monday’s briefing, Mahan said that Colonie is the most densely populated town in the Capital Region with over 83,000 people. She said that 20 percent are seniors and that the new testing would “give people peace of mind” and would also provide more data, making it possible to “treat properly and to trace where these people are that have been affected by COVID-19.”

McCoy said that the county sheriff’s office would provide security at the new testing site as it has at the already-established sites.

He also announced that there are now 656 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Albany County with 784 people under mandatory quarantine and 38 people under precautionary quarantine. A total of 1,555 people have completed quarantine, and 323 of those who had tested positive for the virus have recovered.

Also, 35 county residents are now hospitalized with nine of them in intensive-care units. The hospitalization rate for Albany County stands at 5.33 percent, up slightly from the day before.

“This really highlights the important work that can be done when we collaborate in the community,” said Albany County Health Commissioner Elizabeth Whalen of the new Colonie testing site. “There’s not just one way to get testing done.”

“Numbers steady”

She also said, “Testing is really the cornerstone of disease control because it enables us to early identify cases and isolate them so they do not spread COVID-19 to others and also to quarantine contacts.”

Whalen said her department has been looking closely at the numbers of residents testing positive for COVID-19 and the number hospitalized and on Tuesday “we hope to talk more about how to communicate that to the community.”

She also said, “Our numbers now are steady. We’re getting positives every day. We are seeing patients in the hospital but we are not moving towards a large spike, and we’re wondering what this means.” The only way to find out, Whalen said, “is to continue to follow the data along.”

She reiterated that it is essential for people to stay six feet from others, to wash their hands, and to stay home if they are sick and to get tested if they are sick.

Because of a false assumption that the health department would put out a press release if a resident were infected in a public place, Whalen described the way her department investigates cases. The ill person is interviewed to see who he or she has come in contact with.

“If the case cannot give us all the contacts,” she said, a press release may be issued to find members of the public who could have been exposed.

“If, however, it is a large place and that individual is in a back room in contact with three or four individuals … we identify contacts and proceed.”

Whalen reiterated that, in any public place, such as a grocery store, people should wear masks, clean their hands, and maintain a six-foot distance from others.

Antibody testing

Governor Andrew Cuomo has launched an antibody-testing program, which Whalen termed “very important.”

 She contrasted it with the testing being done in Albany County to diagnose the disease.

Antibody testing, she explained, is “a blood test to let you know if you have antibodies to COVID-19,” meaning “you have been exposed to the disease and your immune system has created antibodies.”

Cuomo announced on Sunday that antibody testing would start on Monday. Of the state’s 19.5 million residents, a sample of 3,000 people will be tested.

Finger-stick tests will be done at Price Chopper supermarkets across the state on people who are willing and who have not been diagnosed with COVID-19, Whalen said. The testing “will give us a marker,” she said, “to get an approximation of a rate.”

A second initiative, Whalen said, is to do an outreach with health-care workers.

The data from these initiatives, Whalen explained, will guide “how we launch back into the workplace, how we restart life.”